|The News Minute | March 3, 2015 | 10:00 p.m. IST
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently visiting Sri Lanka. The last time an Indian PM visited the island nation 27 years ago, he didn’t really come out smiling. On July 30th, 1987, when Rajiv Gandhi inspected a guard-of-honour, he was struck by a blow on his shoulder which intended to kill him.
“He saw my shadow and he bent. Actually I think Prime Minister Gandhi knew that we Sri Lankans did not like him,” told Wijemuni Vijitha Rohana de Silva to the Daily Mirror in an interview in 2007 which has been reproduced here.
Wijemuni, then with the Sri Lankan navy, was distressed about the Indo-Sri Lankan accord that had just been agreed upon and he says that “I was thinking how India was helping the LTTE with money, arms and military training. The idea to attack with the rifle struck my mind when Rajiv Gandhi was about two or three feet away from me.”
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On being asked if he intended to kill the Indian PM then, he says: “Yes. My intention was that because of the damage he had caused to our country”.
The incident, which was seen live by viewers on Doordarshan, can also be seen here.
The attack left Gandhi with a lump on his shoulder, and he was quoted as saying then that “By my ducking, he missed my head and the brunt of the blow came on my shoulder below the left ear”.
The attack also made Wijemuni a sort of celebrity in Sri Lanka who, after six years in prison, contested elections for the Sihala Urumaya party in 2000, but lost.
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He did send his condolences on Rajiv Gandhi’s demise though. The gesture was acknowledged by the Indian government. “As a human being I had nothing against the India Premier, but it was against what he did and his opportunistic policies to support the LTTE”, he is quoted as saying.
The man though now runs a record bar in Colombo and he says that he loves Indian songs and that most of the CDs he sells are of Bollywood music. He is also a serious astrologer now and has been on TV in his home nation making predictions citing prison time as a reason for taking it up.
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“While I was in prison I had ample time to study. So I read lots of books on astrology. It is a science that has to be mastered with dedication and I did so”, he told the newspaper.
So after predicting Rajapaksa’s loss and Modi’s victory in the last elections, an Indian Express report claims he has yet another surprise up his sleeve.
To prove that all is forgiven, he predicts that Rahul Gandhi will become PM, but nine years later.